Eat Better, Be Better

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

In recent years, I haven’t been much of a cookie person. I buy them for my son to take to school but otherwise they wouldn’t make my shopping list. However this fall season I’ve found myself stealing a few from my son’s stash to eat with afternoon tea. We have the packaged soft chocolate chip cookies, which are pretty high in fat without much flavor. So I searched online for a seasonal cookie recipe and found pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to be popular. BUT the recipes all contained two sticks of butter and two cups of sugar…not healthy! Thankfully I also found a “Healthier Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie” recipe by Greatist. I appreciated their term “healthier” as cookies in general are not healthy and don’t like when a cookie recipe is entitled “healthy” just because it may be lower in fat or calories than the original version but offers little else.

This truly healthful recipe started with nutrient-dense ingredients like pumpkin, ground flaxseeds, whole grain flour, and dark chocolate. I used their option of replacing all of the butter with unsweetened applesauce and also decreased the sugar by 1/2 cup (with the allowance of adding more dark chocolate chips!). The texture was moist thanks to the pumpkin and applesauce, and the chips gave it a nice decadence. It’s perfect for when you need just a little something sweet but that you can feel good about eating. These are lower in fat but not lower in calories than other cookies, so be sure to enjoy just a few at a time!